How to capture output of unix time command?

[lalnamar]

I want to execute a unix time command using perl, and capture the output (specifically, the time it takes the command to execute).

i tried using the system command:
system("time command ");
however, when i try to capture the output, the capture output does not contain the amount of time it took to execute

when i try to do:
$var = `time command `;
there is the same problem (the ouput from the command is saved in the variable; however, the time is not)

So, how do i capture the time it takes a unix command to execute?

[numberwhun]

Your script is doing exactly what you designed it to do. It is storing the output of the command you issued in the variable you specified. Even on the command line the command won't tell you how long it took to execute. It sounds like you want to do some sort of benchmarking of Perl while executing system commands. Unfortunately, I don't have any experience with benchmarking and couldn't be much help.

Regards,

Jeff

[lalnamar]

when i type in "time command " at the command line i get the following:

...
lines of output
....
real 0.5
user 0.4
sys 0.0

I want to store ALL the above output in a file (using a perl script). When i try to do this, i am only able to store the "lines of ouput" part. I am unable to store those last three lines, and i cant figure out why I am unable to.

[numberwhun]

Ok, have you tried this"

@var = `time command`;

That should take each line and put it into its own element. So, element [0] would be "lines of output"

Regards,

Jeff

[miller]

I want to execute a unix time command using perl, and capture the output (specifically, the time it takes the command to execute).

i tried using the system command:
system("time command ");
however, when i try to capture the output, the capture output does not contain the amount of time it took to execute

when i try to do:
$var = `time command `;
there is the same problem (the ouput from the command is saved in the variable; however, the time is not)

So, how do i capture the time it takes a unix command to execute?

I have no experience with the time command in unix. Whenever I need benchmarking, I would simply roll my own using Time::HiRes and the gettimeofday function.

However, throwing together a quick script, this is what I obtained.

#! /usr/bin/perl
# scratch.pl
 
print "Hello world\n";
sleep 2;
print "Goodbye World\n";
 

#! /usr/bin/perl
# scratch2.pl
 
my $x = `time -p perl scratch.pl`;
print $x;
 

And the output of running scratch2.pl

$ perl scratch2.pl 
real 2.00
user 0.00
sys 0.00
Hello world
Goodbye World
 

Seems to work ok to me.

- Miller

[lalnamar]

Comment out line 5 of scratch2.pl and run the program. The output is:

real 2.00
user 0.00
sys 0.00

Alternatively, add the line - print $x; - to scratch2.pl and run the program (now we are printing $x twice). The output is:

real 2.00
user 0.00
sys 0.00
Hello world
Goodbye World
Hello world
Goodbye World

In other words, the timing information was never captured in the variable $x !

[owo]

I believe the "time" command in unix prints to standard error rather than standard out, which may be why you aren't capturing it. See discussion of capturing standard error at: http://stein.cshl.org/genome_informatics/unix2/index.html#stderr

[owo]

Note: you can also do some shell scripting, and try something like:

( time <command> ) | perl -options '....'

Depending on your shell, I suppose. But this syntax works on at least come tcsh (and csh?) varieties.

[numberwhun]

I believe the "time" command in unix prints to standard error rather than standard out, which may be why you aren't capturing it. See discussion of capturing standard error at: http://stein.cshl.org/genome_informatics/unix2/index.html#stderr

If that is the case, then all he would have to do is add a 2>&1 to the end of his command and it will send the error to wherever he specified the standard out to go to.

Regards,

Jeff

[miller]

perlfaq8 How can I capture STDERR from an external command?

Just change my scratch2.pl script to the following:

#! /usr/bin/perl
# scratch2.pl
 
my $x = `time -p perl scratch.pl 1>/dev/null 2>&1`;
print $x;
 

- Miller

[Andrew C]

On Solaris 10 (using bash shell), I had trouble getting `time -p <command> 2>&1` to work. I solved it by executing the time command in its own shell as follows:

TIMING=`bash -c "time ls -l" 2>&1`